


To New Friends

by SenkoWakimarin



Category: Daredevil (TV), The Punisher (TV 2017)
Genre: Alcohol, Gen, drinking away feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-11-07
Updated: 2018-11-07
Packaged: 2019-08-20 01:13:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,327
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16545983
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SenkoWakimarin/pseuds/SenkoWakimarin
Summary: Foggy is tired of trying.





	To New Friends

**Author's Note:**

> For the tumblr anon who requested: "David Lieberman meeting Foggy Nelson? Good sidekicks commiserating about their dumb ass best friends."
> 
> Hope you were looking for suffering ;)

The worst of it, as far as Foggy could tell, was that Matt still didn’t understand. Foggy could talk straight, every word as close to monosyllabic as possible; Foggy could break his argument into little digestible pieces so easily it was almost second nature. He could do that, and Matt would always screw up his face and mime that exaggerated confusion, and up until now, Foggy had blamed himself. 

If he were a better friend. If he were better with words. If he were smarter, braver, more honest. 

If he were someone else, anyone else, maybe Matt would giving listening a try.  

Tonight though, Foggy had gotten sick of it. Sick of being scared for this man, this  _ stranger _ who was his best friend - God, but it was ugly. Foggy had always been so careful to mitigate his anger around Matt, his resentment. Careful to pull the punches his words could have been, because he was scared, really, scared of losing his friend. 

Except it had occurred to him, somewhere between Matt scoffing at his concern and lecturing him about the morality of his vigilantism, that he’d lost Matt a long time ago. Or maybe, if he wanted to be utterly honest about it, he’d never had Matt. His friendship was built on lies, a rickety, tenuous structure from beneath which the rug had finally been pulled out. 

He didn’t doubt that, in a way, Matt cared about him. That was the hardest part of all this - in some stupid, twisted up way, Matt really did care. He just didn’t see Foggy as a person with agency, not really - Foggy was someone to protect, not someone to listen to, not someone to trust. Matt gave him little teasing tastes of the truth, he gave them to Foggy like he was pulling out his own teeth and presented them in a grand gesture of martyrdom. Matt loved to take on more than he should, Foggy had known that about him from the start. What he hadn’t realized was that Matt’s martyr complex ran much deeper than just running a law firm in which they were paid in promises and produce. It was a violent thing, ugly and wound deep into Matt’s blood. 

And maybe Matt couldn’t help it. Maybe it was a sickness, like schizophrenia or alcoholism, something he just couldn’t help. Maybe it was unfair of Foggy to try changing him, to expect him to learn and grow away from the lying, the violence. 

But maybe it was equally unfair to be asked to stand back and watch this man self destruct.

He thinks about the Castle case sometimes. God, what a shit show. He remembers the bunch of a bullet, the strange heat of it tearing through his shoulder, and he remembers those pleading eyes, begging him for help he could in no way give. He dreams about those eyes, sometimes. In the best dreams, it plays out like a memory, just a memory he can wake up from. In the worst, those eyes are Matt’s eyes, glassy and unfocused but still pleading, still begging Foggy to save him from danger Foggy simply couldn’t defend against. 

He supposes there’s some kind of message there. He’s much more interested in focusing on his career than the meanings of dreams, though. 

Frank Castle. Another man risen from the dead. One day it’s on every news station, all anyone can talk about - Frank Castle the terrorist, blowing up buildings with the help of some gun-nut, alt-right looking kid. Next thing he knew, Foggy was reading retractions in the paper, shaking his head because he knew ninety percent of the folks at home, who had gobbled up the sensationalized fear mongering surrounded Castle as his life was picked apart and spooled out live on TV, would never read the contrite, terse notes in the paper from every major news network. “Oops, we were mistaken,” those notes said, and Foggy always heard a nasty little giggle when he read those retractions; “Oops, we were mistaken, but it doesn’t matter because the ratings were good and you’ve all already made up your minds.”

Did Frank have any friends, the way Matt had Foggy, had Karen? Did Frank have people who saw him on the news, painted a traitor, a terrorist, a monster, and feel their hearts break because they know it’s untrue, they know he’s better than they say. Was there anyone left in Frank’s life who worried about him, about whether he stayed out of jail, who helped him with the injuries he always seemed to have?

Foggy hadn’t wanted Frank’s case. Foggy had been scared of Frank and, faced with the man today, probably would be scared of him still. But Foggy understood, in his gut and in his heart, that he had been unfair. His harsh judgement of Frank Castle had more to do with his new understanding of Matt’s lifestyle than it had to do with his client. If he met Frank again, he’d be scared, sure, but he’d also apologize. 

Somewhere out in the bitter weather, Matt was running dark alleys, or flipping around on rooftops. Matt was seeing the world through a veil of fire, and Foggy knew, the same way he knew that he’d been unfair with Frank, that Matt was punching harder than normal, Matt was throwing himself into his fights because that’s how Matt dealt with his anger - and most of his other emotions, too. Matt was fighting guys with knives and guns and murder in their hearts, fighting them with the intent to clean up the streets or maybe just the intent to beat the shit out of someone, while Foggy sat in this quiet little bar and spun his glass of whiskey in slow, uneven circles.

There is a man sitting next to him at the bar. Lanky, bearded, curly hair smooshed down by a beanie that, honestly, does not look up to the task. It looks like it’s going to be flung off his head by those suppressed curls any second. Foggy had noted the man when he sat beside him, but hadn’t paid him much mind since. He had a wedding ring on, and seemed devoted to his gin.

There had been a time when Foggy might have tried chat him up anyway, if only to get the guy to stop looking so damn unhappy. The idea of making an attempt when he himself probably looks like the dictionary definition of ‘upset’ sounds hypocritical and exceedingly unpleasant.

Foggy almost jumps when the guy speaks. 

“I know you,” he says, and Foggy is immediately scared. Dive bar in a rundown part of town he doesn’t usually come to, suddenly addressed by a stranger claiming to know him. Yeah that could  _ only _ go well. “You were, uh, you were Frank Castle’s lawyer, yeah?”

Looking around, Foggy is sure he’s going to see a gun in the guy’s hand or someone else watching them, pointed and threatening. He does not see how this line of conversation can lead to anything pleasant for him. But the stranger is using both hands to hold his glass of gin, and the only other patrons of the bar are loudly debating the merit of some move just made at the pool table. The bartender is leaning against the bar and watching something on the television.

Absolutely no one is paying attention to them, and so Foggy clears his throat and meets the stranger’s eyes. They’re vibrantly blue, the color more prominent for the color raised high in his cheeks, and Foggy thinks that if it weren’t for the circumstances, and maybe for the wedding band gleaming merrily in the light, this guy would actually be pretty cute, beard and all. Foggy isn’t usually much for beards, but this guy has a face for it.

“One of them.” He allows, and then quickly adds, “I have no idea where he is or anything. Like, just to be clear.”

The stranger smiles faintly, an expression of vague amusement, a private joke, that Foggy doesn’t understand but that makes him look infinitely more approachable. Foggy finds himself relaxing a little. “Nobody does,” the stranger says, light and easy, but there’s something to the way he says it, like that’s part of his joke. “I just, uh, I was surprised I recognized you. Thought it was pretty bold, taking his case.”

Foggy scoffs, he can’t help it. “Wasn’t my idea. My part - er, ex-partner, he was -  _ is _ kind of an adrenaline junky. I think he liked the idea of going up against the big dogs with everything stacked against that.”

“You agreed, though, right?”

“Under duress, I guess you could say.” Foggy smiles, he always smiles easily for attractive people, it’s like he can’t help it. “I protested heavily. Matt insisted.”

“Your partner sounds like kind of a dick.”

And Foggy laughs - he shouldn’t, he knows that, he shouldn’t let some stranger talk shit about Matt, but oh - oh, it feels nice to hear someone else say it. Everyone always bought into Matt’s schtick, even Foggy. But he  _ was _ . He  _ was _ kind of a dick. 

“Lemme guess,” the guy says, finally picking up his drink and knocking half of it back in a go. He drank like a man intent on inebriation. “I don’t know the half of it, right?”

Foggy shook his head, trying to mute his smile into something more reproachful. He should defend Matt, but he can’t think of what to say. 

“I’m David.”

A hand is offered and Foggy finds himself shaking it. His wariness is outweighed, he supposes, by the desperate loneliness that has defined the evening. 

“Foggy,” he says. 

“Friends can be real assholes,” David says, facing forward, glass back on the bartop, both hands back on the glass. His index finger taps the rim, like he’s thinking, and his smile is barely there anymore. “I’ve got this one friend, he uh. We went through some shit, and then he just fucking left. Drove off. Disappeared.”

“Today?” Foggy asks, looking into his own drink. He’s not surprised by the impromptu confession from a total stranger. He has one of those faces, people get comfortable around him easily. And Foggy has always dealt with other people’s problems better than he dealt with his own. 

David shakes his head, and his curls bounce. It’s kind of cute, and Foggy knows he really needs to stop thinking about that. The guy is married, for fuck’s sake; the wedding ring is right there. “Nope. I think it hurt less, actually, that day. I haven’t even seen him in - fuck, months now.”

“Ah,” Foggy says, and takes a gulp of the whiskey, grimacing at the bite. He’d never really been a whiskey man, but depression always made it sound super appealing. It was a drink a man could brood to. “I had a sort’ve… maybe friendship ending fight? Today. With my uh, ex-partner.”

Raising his glass, David chuckles. He grins, head cocked down to look at Foggy in a sort of askance appreciation, when Foggy clinks his own to it. “It’s fucked up. Like, the way someone can be everything for you for a while, part of your everyday thing. Talking to them is like a habit, right? And you think it’s so… well, I mean, it wasn’t all good. Right? Like what you had with your partner, ex-partner, whatever, that wasn’t always perfect right?”

Foggy hazards a nod, but says nothing. David seems to be talking himself through something, and it’s easier just to let him go. Foggy thinks of Marci, the way she could talk herself into anything as long as someone else was willing to sit through it and nod along, and he smiles faintly. 

“Right, okay so - like that’s kind of part of the appeal though. You’ve got a friend and it’s not always easy but it’s always  _ real, _ it’s honest. At least, on your end it is. But then they just… leave, like it’s nothing.”

“And you find out that like, at least half of what you thought was a foundation to the relationship was bullshit.” 

Foggy can’t help sounding bitter, and he feels himself color when David looks at him. And maybe David has one of those faces, too, because Foggy keeps talking, feeling like he’s gutting himself; he’s saying more than he should, really, but it’s hard to keep all that locked up when no one is there anymore to listen.

“You ever get shot? I did. He didn’t even come to the hospital. I forgave him for it, ‘cuz that’s what you do with friends. Best friends. But like, am I being an asshole here then? Is it asking too much to want him to actually grow up and quit acting like I can’t be trusted -”

David’s eyes on him are suddenly very keen, and Foggy shuts up quick, looking away. 

After a second, both of them focusing on their drinks in the interim, David nods, shrugs, looking at Foggy until he finally sighs and meets his gaze. “I don’t think you’re being an asshole, but, uh, you know… if he’s like, still around? You should lay it out like that. And if he doesn’t listen, he’s the one being an asshole, yeah?”

Foggy nods back, sighing. He  _ tried _ , he wants to say. He gave Matt  _ so many _ chances. And he was tired. He was tired of trying.

“It’s exhausting. Trying to get through to people like that, I know.” David sounds like he  _ does _ know, is the thing. “But like, while he’s here - while you can still find him? You can either keep giving him chances, or you can do this.” And again, David holds the glass of gin up, shaking it a little. “Up to you, man.”

Foggy grips his own glass, and he thinks about it for a long time. The silence between them settles into something natural, and David pats his shoulder before polishing off his drink. 


End file.
